Current Discourses on Exhibiting and Museum Education: Museums and Exhibitions as Social Spaces – Practices, Positions, Perspectives

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The seminar / the conference with international guests examine practices, positions and perspectives of “museums and exhibitions as social spaces.” After an introductory event, this will take place along the thematic focuses “Museums and Exhibitions as Contact and Conflict Zones”, “Artistic and Curatorial Practice as Political Intervention" and “Exhibiting Institutions as Critical Authority.” The extent to which museums, exhibiting institutions and exhibitions can function as possibility spaces for democratic negotiation processes will be put up for debate.

Conceptualized and moderated by
Sønke Gau, Angeli Sachs, Thomas Sieber

What is actually a museum? It appeared relatively clear for a long period of time that, regardless of whether a museum is operated privately or publicly, whether it is dedicated to art, history or natural history, it “acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment”. This is how the International Council of Museums (ICOM) has defined the institution since 2007. Since 2016, the ICOM has been working on a new definition. Even with the new proposal made in 2019 – which defines museums as polyphonic spaces advocating for social justice, acting in a democratizing way and contributing to planetary wellbeing – the international discussion on what a museum is and what it should be in the future has by no means abated. Recently, the debate on the decolonization of collecting and exhibiting institutions has shown that dominant, (neo)colonial narratives are still being (re)produced and determine the majority of the epistemological foundations on which knowledge orders of exhibiting institutions are based.

The extent to which museums, exhibiting institutions and exhibitions can function as possibility spaces for democratic negotiation processes will be put up for debate. How can museums become polyphonic spaces that lend a voice to previously marginalized positions and make invisible stories visible, while subjecting the foundations of their own knowledge orders to renegotiation? How can exhibitions, with regard to their interplay of diverse actors, artworks and objects with architecture, displays, curatorial concepts, and educational programs, be grasped as experimental setups in social space? To what extent can and should exhibiting institutions go beyond their traditional functions, self-understanding and expertise and become actors of political democratization and social inclusion?

Dates

Museums and exhibitions as social spaces
29.4.2022, 10–17h
Toni-Areal, Kunstraum, 5.K12, Ebene 5
with
Léontine Meijer-van Mensch
graduates of the Master Art Education Curatorial Studies:
Katrin Bauer, Jonas Bürgi, Julian Denzler, Yulia Fisch, Martina Oberprantacher

Museums and Exhibitions as Contact and Conflict Zones
13.5.2022, 10–17h
Toni-Areal, Raum 4.T09, Ebene 4
with
Anna Greve
Bonaventure Ndikung
Ismahan Wayah

Artistic and Curatorial Practice as Political Intervention
20.5.2022, 10–17h
Toni-Areal, Raum 4.T09, Ebene 4
with
Kathleen Bühler
Forensic Architecture
RELAX (chiarenza & hauser & co)

Exhibiting Institutions as Critical Authority
27.5.2022, 10–17h
Toni-Areal, Raum 4.T09, Ebene 4
with
Binna Choi
Clémentine Deliss
Maria Lind

Registration

The conference is free and open to public. Participants are required to register by mail to Bruno Heller.